Casca 16: Desert Mercenary (5 page)

The day was giving way reluctantly as the shadows grew longer and darker across the land.
Mamud looked to the south, his eyes going beyond the mountains. "It is hard out there, my friend. There is a saying which has much truth to it. And that is: if you cross the Sahara, to stay on the trail look for the bones of those who have died. They mark the trail. When you cannot find them, you are truly and forever lost."

Carl knew that even though the danger that he spoke of was real, in the deep caverns of his soul
Mamud still longed for the freedom he had known of the desert before he became master of Wadi Jebel. Out there in the great silence was the only true freedom for one such as he.

"Al
Kattel, I will go with you in your quest. If you will cross the Baguezane, you will have need of one who knows the way. Once, when I was young, my sire pitched our tents at the base of the mountain. My boyhood friends and I spent many months learning its secrets. I know how to get to the camp of Sunni Ali. You must come from the east over the mountain. No one will look for you to come out of the desert."

Mamud
was not a young man but Carl knew that he had hidden reserves of strength. And he was right, he would be needed. Perhaps he would even make the difference. "Very well, graybeard. If you would go once more into the desert, then come with us as friend and companion."

Mamud
faced toward the mountains, now only a faint, soon to be invisible line against the rim of heaven. "Good. It is right that I go with you. I have been too long away. The soft life has taken much from me, and now I have little left to give. My days grow short and I am not needed as I once was. My sons have sons. They are not of the desert anymore. Soon they will want cars and planes, vacations in Europe. That is well enough for them, but I wish to return one more time to the furnace that once made my people great in the eyes of God."

Turning his eyes to Carl he breathed deeply, "Ah, yes I know. I ramble too much. Dream too much. But you know that when only the stars separate one from the face of God, when the djinns, the spirits, ride the winds and great dunes move as oceans over the land, it is easy to dream. To dream
of those years past when my people rode out of the furnace as hard as steel, pure of mind and eye. With the sword and the Koran they cleansed the earth."

Carl thought he saw a tear in
Mamud 's eye. "And then, my friend?"

Maraud looked toward the north. "Then we fell from
favor and became like those we conquered. The cities took us and with the taking we were corrupted in the eyes of Allah, may His name be praised. For this did he turn his favor from us, and now for such a long time we have been a small people who fight among ourselves and accomplish nothing. We have little left and that is one reason why I wish to go with you. This Sunni Ali must be stopped. The ways of old are not to be brought back. The world is too different. All that he would accomplish would be to speed up the dying. I would have the old ways die like myself, with time and as much grace as possible."

Carl understood all too well. Casca Rufio Longinus had seen nations rise and fall, men and religions grow old and unneeded. He shook the thoughts from him. Casca alias Carl
Langer was to live in this time. Yet if he could have he would return to the other time also.

A chill ran over
Langer. In only a few minutes the temperature had dropped twenty degrees. "Let's go back now," he said. There is much to do. We will meet again perhaps in one or two days. At that time be ready to go. Also, if you find out anything more about Sunni Ali, contact me immediately."

Ma
mud led the way back. Carl watched him carefully. His steps were strong, sure, his back still as straight as a
jirad
, a spear. He knew the old man would carry his weight, more than carry it. When one was ready to die as he was, the last reserves of strength from body and soul stood by to be called on. He envied Sharif Maraud his death. For he knew that the hand of Allah had touched the old man. He was ready for paradise. Carl wished him well in the afterlife.
In sha' Allah
, the will of God.

Gus was ready for them. Nothing remained save the bones, which had been well picked, sucked, and smacked over by the fleshy lips of the big German. When they returned, Gus was wandering around outside of Sharif
Mamud's tent eating a handful of sweet dates for dessert.

Carl left Sharif
Mamud at the door of his tent, telling him "Rest well and dream the dreams of old. For I know that they will come to you again and this time your dream of freedom will be realized, for that is what you seek and what you shall find."

Mamud
nodded his head. It was good to speak to one who understood. The scar faced feringi was more than he seemed. There were depths to the man's soul that were deep, very deep, and in those depths were great sorrows. Mamud wished for him, too, to one day find peace. "
Salaam aleikum
, my friend." He spoke the parting words.

"
Aleikum salaam
, Sharif Mamud ibn Hassan. Peace be with you. Till we meet again." To his large friend he said, "Come on, Gus, let's get going. Monpelier should be there by now."

Gus climbed into the driver's seat and started up the Land Rover. The ride back to the fort seemed much longer. Or perhaps it was just that Carl felt very, very old.

He did not like the caves; they choked him with their closeness. Holes in the earth were the domain of the dead. The walls were stained with smoke ten thousand years old and covered in parts with prehistoric paintings. It stank inside of stale death, not of the invigorating purity of the desert.

Guards at the entrance to the caves bowed as he passed, their faces, like his, kept hidden beneath the black indigo dyed veils. He was their master
, and they were his dogs to do his bidding. Their only reason for existing was to obey and serve. Sunni Ali felt the same discontent for them: the warriors of the Tuareg had too long been confined. Soon it would be time to set his dogs loose to reclaim their ancient heritage.

Striding across a cleared area between larger
than man sized boulders he went to his tent, ignoring the rest of his encampment whose tents had been set to take advantage of what shade was cast by the boulders of the mountain. But his eyes missed nothing. Sentries stood on high points to observe all that passed in front of their eyes, eyes which could see much farther than those of ordinary men, eyes which had been trained in the constant glare of the Saharan sun. His women he had sent away. There was no place for women in the affairs of men. They were a distraction at this time. He would be served only by the men of his tribe.

Resting on cushions of woven horse hair, Sunni Ali crossed his legs and removed his veil. His face was stark, surprisingly pale where the sun had not touched it. The bones of his cheeks were prominent, giving him the gaunt and intense look of a desert falcon. He wished nothing at this time and waved away his attendants. He wanted only to think.

When the weapons came he would gather to him the tribes of the desert and make war. He did not have any illusions about being able to win a major war, but he could make it so expensive for the enemy in terms of life and cost that his people would be granted their freedom. Freedom from artificial boundaries, freedom to ride as they had for a thousand years, obeying only the laws of Allah, blessed be His name, and those of the desert. Let the rest of the world do as it wished. Let them destroy themselves in their quest for power. He wanted only that which was theirs and the return of their way of life without interference. If it meant that thousands would die, that too would be in the hands of God.

Once he had possession of the weapons the boy's father had promised, Sunni Ali would then call a great gathering of the tribes to him. Already he had sent emissaries to the Bedouin and the other Berber. He heard back from them that they would wait and see if he could deliver on his promise. Rifles alone were not enough to fight tanks
and airplanes. Courage they had, but too many times in the past they had seen the bravery of their fighting men destroyed by the more modem weapons of the invaders. To wage war they had to know that they had at least a fighting chance. That is all. No one would have believed a guarantee of victory, but a fighting chance was all that was required for them to gather their warriors and once more come out of the desert to drive the invaders and infidels from their lands. Who knew? If they were successful in their first attempt then it might be that the other tribes of the Berbers and even some of the Arabs would come to ride with them and declare a great jihad, a holy war.

Sunni Ali saw all this clearly. In the remote regions of his mind there was the thought that perhaps, just perhaps, he could be the flame which would rally all the followers of the prophet together and once and for all rid themselves of the
feringi. Then the tribes could go back to settling their differences among themselves as they always had.

Legend and prophecy had forecast the birth of a great one who would rally Islam. It was possible that it could be him. He did have the space between his teeth that the prophets had said would mark the Ma
hdi.

Sunni Ali lost sight of reality in his dreams, dreams he had as a child reborn. H
e had listened to the storytellers talk of the past when they were free men, of the great warriors who with sword and fire brought the word of Allah to the unbeliever. He believed in dreams. Oft times at night he would go deep into the desert, his eyes locked upon the heavens if he waited long enough he could see the passing of stars, comets, and constellations. In them were his dreams.

The
feringi had two weeks, not one minute longer, more to give him that which he had demanded. Then the boy would watch his wife die slowly, a slice of her being taken away every day. Once there was nothing left of her but madness, he would start on the son of the arms dealer. Unless, of course, the old man reconsidered once he knew what had happened to the girl.

Taking a path up the side of the mountain, he passed sentries whose eyes sparkled with the fire of devotion above the folds of their veils.

"
El kher ghas
."

He acknowledged that
all was well.

Sunni Ali found what he desired, a place where he could look out into the distance to where the hand of God touched the sky and the earth as one. It was good to let the great quiet seep into his soul. It was pure, clean. That is all that he wished for. He knew of the cities to the West and the Orient, of their sickness of soul and heart. He was no fool.

Let the outside world think of him as only another madman of the desert. He knew what he was doing. If the desert was to be returned to its rightful owners, now was the time.

The nations around them were weak. Recent wars of independence had taken all of the energies and resources of the colonial powers. They could not afford a war in the desert. Europe had its own problems and war and was weary. They had no interest in the Sahara, only in its oil. Even that could be negotiated. France was emotionally crippled by her long wars in Asia and North Africa. England had her own problems in Kenya and Egypt.

On his side also were many liberal organizations with over worked social consciences to whom the return of the lands to their original peoples would seem a fine and good thing. All this he had as allies, and most of all he had the desert.

To wage war at this time, Sunni Ali could rally an army that would cost hundreds of millions to match, money which would not be easily forthcoming. From the
Tuareg alone he could can on 70,000 warriors. If the Bedouin and rest of the Berber joined with him, they would number over 150,000 fighting men. A major force, a force larger than the combined armies of Algeria, Libya, and Tunisia.

He would leave the
feringi their coastlines and green valleys, and make the cost of one hectare of his desert so high no man in his right mind would wish to pay the price for it. But it had to be now before the climate of the outside world changed and too many of the desert peoples were drawn into the cities and ruined by the corruption which was bred there.

It was a great dream, one he had first had when he became a convert to the ways of Allah, may His name be praised. Islam was the light, the flame which he would use to unite the tribes. His people, the
Tuareg, were already devout Moslems. Among those who had come to him, he had slowly enforced the Islamic law of old by increasing the discipline a little every day. The pure faith of Mohammed would be vital to his plans, to give his men the singleness of thought and purpose which could unite them against the outsiders.

A wind blew from the southwest. He knew where it originated.
On the ocean currents off the Ivory Coast. In his mind it still had the smell of the sea to it. Beyond this range the winds would be sucked dry as he would suck dry the bodies of any who came against him.

Removing his veil Sunni Ali bared his face to the crystal clear night, exposing his true self. If it had not been for the blue cast given it by the indigo dye, his face would have been as fair as the day his mother had given birth to him faraway in the green valley of the Rhine River.

The years had been long since the day he had escaped from the American prisoner of war camp outside of Tunis. He made his way into the desert and wandered about half mad until he was found by a band of Tuaregs heading south across the Sahara away from the war. He had gone with them. He had been brought into the clan by their master, Bukush, a member of the Imahren, the upper caste of the Tuareg, through marriage to one of his daughters.

They taught him their ways and he aided them with his modem mind. He could make machinery work. He knew mode
rn weapons and tactics. He should know, having once been a colonel in Rommel 's Afrika Korps. He knew how to fight in the desert against the West.

Once
Bukush died, Sunni Ali had slowly taken over guidance of the Azbine clan into which he had married and been adopted. By his command the Azbini had gone to the north and brought back items which had been abandoned on a dozen battlefields. He had repaired the vehicles, two Hanamog half-tracks and three American jeeps. These had been kept stored in the caves where he now held his captives.

For eleven long years they had waited. Their small stockpile of weapons and ammunition was not enough for his mission, but it was enough to secure his leadership. And Sunni Ali had a great advantage: a modern, trained mind to command warriors who still had the raw courage of the savage in their breasts. He would guide them, be their father, and make them a great people once more.

Yes, it was a good dream, one that he would follow to the end. For such was the will of God.
In sha' Allah!